What do you wish someone had told you NOT to do in your first month with an EV?
3 weeks in with my first ev (moved to columbus a bit ago too so still getting used to everything). instead of asking what i SHOULD do, feels like nobody actually tells you what not to do until youve already done it. so — what do you wish someone had stopped you from doing in the first month? trying to not find out the hard way if i can help it
Filed under: General EV Talk
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15 answers
15 ANSWERS
@icewardenJuly 22, 2026
Eight years in, so here's what actually cost me something versus what I worried about for nothing. First month I charged to 100 every night out of habit from filling up a gas tank — nobody told me that's the one actually worth not doing daily on an NMC pack, doesn't need to be full unless you're driving that day. Also treated the fast charger on my commute like a regular stop for about three weeks before I did the math on what that costs versus plugging in at home overnight. Neither one broke anything. Both were dumb in hindsight.
Add buying accessories before you know your actual pattern. Bought a whole winter charging kit, a second cable for the garage, some app-connected smart plug thing — week one, before I'd even figured out I basically only ever charge overnight at home and never touch half of it. Sits in a drawer now.
Would push back slightly — depends on the accessory. A second cable is a waste until you know your pattern like you said, but I don't regret the cold-weather cable cover I bought early, that one just protects the equipment you already have regardless of usage.
Fast charging as your daily habit is the other one. Fine occasionally, not fine as your routine. Took me longer than I'd like to admit to just start plugging in at home like a normal person instead of treating every day like a road trip.
Worth separating two different problems there. It's not that DC fast charging occasionally damages anything by itself — it's that relying on it daily means paying public-rate pricing for something that costs a fraction at home overnight, plus more frequent high-power charging cycles than a slower home charge would put on the pack. Convenience cost and pack-stress cost are two separate arguments, both point the same direction.
@graniteforgeJuly 22, 2026
Circling back to this one since it's been on my mind — wish someone had told me to call my utility about a time-of-use rate before I settled into a routine. I plugged in whenever was convenient for the first six weeks, mostly early evening, which turned out to be the worst possible window rate-wise. Would have taken one phone call to avoid that. Small thing, but on a fixed income small things add up faster than you'd think.
The rate difference is bigger than people expect too — mine is something like triple between peak and off-peak. Worth checking even if you think your utility doesn't do anything special, some of them have it and just don't advertise it well.
This is the mistake that actually strands people, not the ones that just cost money. If you're planning a winter trip on the manufacturer's rated range number, you're planning on a number that assumes mild weather and no cabin heat running. Real cold cuts into that meaningfully — budget the shortfall into your stops before you leave, don't discover it mid-trip.
Logged this myself over a full winter — my actual highway range at real cold temps ran noticeably under the rated number, consistently, not just on the worst days. Wish I'd planned my first cold-weather trip around what I'd logged instead of the window sticker number.
@lampthreadJuly 22, 2026
ok the utility rate thing — how do you even find out if yours has one of those? do i just call them or is it usually on the website somewhere
Usually both — check the rates/programs page on the utility site first, search for 'EV rate' or 'time of use' specifically, and call if you can't find anything, some don't list it prominently even when it exists.
One worth adding from the install side — the first time you get an actual error code or a charge session that stops early, write down exactly what it said and when, then report it, don't just unplug and try again and forget about it. It's common for the same error to show up a dozen times before it becomes a real problem, and it's usually only caught in hindsight. Early instances are the ones that actually help a tech diagnose something before it gets worse.
Is there an actual running list of this 'don't do this' stuff somewhere, or is it just scattered across threads like this one?
No sticky for this currently, it really is just scattered across threads like this one. Good idea though — if this keeps coming up I'll pull the recurring ones (the 100% charging habit, fast-charging as a daily routine, not checking the utility rate, first big road trip too soon) into an actual pinned post instead of making people search for it each time.
@hollowticketJuly 22, 2026
Nobody warned me off this one either — tried a 300 mile trip about ten days in, before I actually knew how my own car behaved on the highway or how I liked to plan stops. Wasn't a disaster, just way more stressful than it needed to be for a trip I could've waited a month on.
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